


Bare Hands

by betweenthepages



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 13:46:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1690463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweenthepages/pseuds/betweenthepages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times May and Fitz don't talk about the shooting, and the one time May does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bare Hands

**Author's Note:**

> For thewasabipea and leopoldfitz on Tumblr.

1.

They don’t talk about the shooting when they’re scavenging what they can from the Hub, weaving back and forth in a mad dash to load up the plane with supplies.

Coulson’s assigned Fitz to pack up the necessary weapons, but when his hands freeze over a pistol, it is May who shows up alongside him, taking it from his hands and packing it away. They pack until Victoria Hand comes striding up and comes to a stop in front of them, her eyes appraising him before turning to May. 

“I saw what went down in there. Those scientists you begged for — they have nerve. You always did know how to pick them, May.” Something that looks like it might be sorrow flickers over her face, and he can not decipher the look she exchanges with May, but they must have come to some kind of understanding because May nods, and Hand walks away.

His mouth falls open and he turns to May, demanding answers. “You begged for us? No wonder, it would have taken us years to get to Level 5, let alone out in the field — well, Simmons would have made it before me, but still, Level 5, we’d have been here at the Hub —”

“I don’t beg.” Her lips curve slightly, and somehow it’s enough to make some of the tension in his chest ease, “I was very insistent to people very high up that you two were crucial to the success of this team. I was right.” She hefts the bagful of rifles up onto her shoulder, and winces. 

“You should get Simmons to look at that sometime. She works miracles.” he says, gesturing at the bandage on her arm. 

“You both do,” she corrects, and hopes he understands.

2\. 

They don’t talk about the shooting when he finds her in the Bus cockpit at three in the morning, running diagnostics they both know could be run in the morning, when there is light again.

He pulls open the panel that had held her secure line to Fury, and as if she can hear the hesitation in his movements, May shifts in her seat. “Don’t worry, my ICER’s out of bullets,” she says without turning around, and regrets the words as soon as they comes out of her mouth. 

She hears a sharp gasp of breath and feels Fitz go very still behind her, and she turns, an apology already on her tongue.

He stares at her incredulously, then opens his mouth. “Was that… was that an attempt at a joke?”

“Basic human interaction. Not always my forte.”

“Yeah, well, not mine, either,” he admits, and for a moment the air is heavy with words unsaid. May’s lips quirk first, and Fitz loses it, bent over with laughter, gasping for breath. “The Cavalry shot at me and I survived. What a story that would have been at the Academy,” he manages to gasp out, and May comes as close to a chuckle as he’s ever heard it, and he laughs harder, wiping the tears away from his eyes. “But the Academy’s gone, and SHIELD fell, and I—“ the laughter stops and the tears begin to fall, and May is by his side in an instant.

“Look at me. Fitz, look at me,” she requests, hands touching his shoulders gently. “The scientist who didn’t pass his field exams shot someone and so I survived. What a story that would have been at SHIELD,” she says, words laden with conviction. 

She doesn’t resist when he pushes past her, heading out of the cockpit. “Fitz,” she calls, and he stops. “Whenever you’re ready, I’m here.”

He nods, and then the door falls shut.

3\. 

They don’t talk about the shooting when they’re trekking through the freezing cold Canadian wilderness, hope fading with every step. 

He runs to catch up with May, panting slightly as he finally matches her stride. He offers her a gun, and she shakes her head. But she slows her pace to something more manageable, and they let Trip and Simmons overtake them, until they are walking at the back of the group. May’s coiled up as tight as a spring, no doubt anticipating an attack, and he wonders, briefly, what it must be like to live always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But ten minutes pass, then twenty, and May relaxes slightly, pausing to pull out a water bottle and take a drink. She offers him the bottle, and he takes it as a cue to talk.

“So is it easier,” he asks casually, the slightest of trembles in his voice, “when you do it with your bare hands?”

“No,” she answers curtly, and he rushes to cut her off before she can ask the dreaded question. “Why do you not take the gun, then?”

“Because it’s not easier.” She draws in a deep breath, then offers a truth. “It doesn’t always hit right away, and when it does, you have to remember that you did what had to be done. But first you have to let it hit.”

The words hang in the air, rubbing against something that is still all too raw. “I need to talk to Simmons,” he blurts out in the silence, and she nods.

Together, they return to their team.

 

4.

They don’t talk about the shooting at Providence, when May catches him before he heads out with Coulson. If the fight he’d overheard has had any effect on her, she doesn’t let it show.

“Fitz. You and Simmons should know that this one is personal for Coulson. Be careful out there.” She starts to walk away, then hesitates and stops, digging around in her pocket and writing something down.

“You should be coming with us.”

“Well, what should happen doesn’t always happen,” she says, her words tinged with a mix of bitterness and sorrow and something Fitz can’t quite place. She hands him a slip of paper, and his hands close around it without looking to see what it is. “If things go south and you need an extraction — call this number. I’ll come get you.”

“But couldn’t we just radio back to base? You’ll be here, right, May?” He barely stops the “we need you” from falling from his tongue, but from the way May’s mouth tightens, she’s heard it loud and clear.

“I’ll come get you,” she repeats, avoiding the question, and before he can process the weight of her words Coulson comes storming by, barking out a sharp “Fitz,” and he follows.

When he comes back, she is gone.

5\. 

They don’t talk about the shooting at the motel, when they’re distributing what little weapons they have left. The group filters out the door, Skye with a meaningful look shot at Fitz, and May finds herself stopped in the doorway.

“One more thing, May.” He pulls a sleek case from his backpack, pulling out a gleaming black gun and handing it to her with both hands.

“It was designed for —“ he says, then stops abruptly. May takes the gun, weighing it in her hands. “You’ll put this to good use?”

She closes her hands around the weight of the gun, too heavy for her; and she has to strain a bit for her finger to reach the trigger, the gun clearly designed for someone with larger hands, someone fussier about the dimensions of their weapons than hers. She’d known those hands intimately well, and Fitz had thought he’d known the owner of those hands well, too. She knows exactly who it was designed for.

Fitz’s hands close in on themselves in the absence of the gun he’d handed over, and when his nails begin to dig into his palms, she takes his hands gently in hers and squeezes. “It’s a good gun. Thank you, Fitz.”

“After —“ his eyes flicker to his hands, then hers, and she knows exactly which after he means, “I thought you might like the heft.” He understood, now, that it was better to feel the weight of a kill, and the thought makes her heart ache.

In the distance, she can hear Coulson calling for them.

“You ready?”

“No, but I will be,” he says, his chin lifting defiantly, and she lets go.

+1

May talks about the shooting at the Playground, when she pulls the nightshift by Fitz’s bed. 

Power’s spotty, and Simmons doesn’t trust the backup generator to kick in properly, so she sits guard and shifts him over to manual ventilation when the power goes out yet again. Simmons doesn’t leave for the night until either she or Triplett come in, now — they have the steadiest hands, she says, and it is this that May thinks of when she switches him over and gently, evenly applies pressure to the bag that keeps him breathing.

She squeezes the bag once, twice, and contemplates what it might have been like to have chosen a career where one nurtured life instead of taking it.

“I’m proud of you,” she says, and hopes against hope that he hears.


End file.
